A realistic "small drum kit" setup - How to make?

[Robert Randolph]

I sometimes play with just a snare drum, bass drum and ride cymbal.
Your left foot feels a bit lonely but its a lovely setup.

Tie a shaker to your left leg, or a tambourine. It's fun!

[Markleford]

Tie a shaker to your left leg, or a tambourine. It's fun!

Or hold one in your ride stick hand for extra "jungle".

- m

[neversaydie]

Now, I know it's been done with as little as a snare and some sort of cymbal, but I want it at least a WEE bit bigger, so I'm thinking--

Kick,
Snare,
hi-hat

I am a beginning drummer, and have had to teach myself thus far, and I get by fine with just a very simple set.

snare,
kick,
high hats,
ride cymbal

I am looking into getting a crash cymbal, however. Many people do well without it, but I personally like the ring it gives to the overall sound, which you just can't get from the ride cymbal, sometimes. I think that what I listed above, with the addition of a crash cymbal would make the ideal basic set.

[Lunch Money]

Cheers! I had forgotten about this thread.

Welcome to KvR!

[o'malley]

I use a 16" floor tom as a bass drum. I just tune it way low. I use a snare, 2 toms, ride, crash and hihats. It is so small and portable, and it sounds nice.

If you want a minimalist drum kit you could just get a cocktail drum, and a little splash cymbol or something. Like this...

kick, snare, tom, hats, cymbal... all in one piece

...or you could go Cubano...

[o'malley]

[quote="neversaydie] but I personally like the ring it gives to the overall sound, which you just can't get from the ride cymbal, sometimes.[/quote]

That all depends on the cymbal.

[Lunch Money]

The thread was originally for getting realism with virtual drums, not buying actual drums-- ie. I wanted to know what could realistically be 'used' without drummers out there going, "there's no fecking way a real drummer would use these components even in a minimal kit". Also, just seeing what's traditionally used when drummers want to pare down but still carry a song.

HOWEVER, now that we're talking about real drums, ideally I'd still want the hats and kick because if I'm going to learn drums, I want to be forced to use all my limbs and learn how to coordinate them.

A snare, kick, hat, and ride cymbal seems like about the most minimal you can get for that sort of thing. Or even ditch the ride and use OHH for a cymbal.

Greg

[o'malley]

The thread was originally for getting realism with virtual drums, not buying actual drums-- ie. I wanted to know what could realistically be 'used' without drummers out there going, "there's no fecking way a real drummer would use these components even in a minimal kit". Also, just seeing what's traditionally used when drummers want to pare down but still carry a song.

HOWEVER, now that we're talking about real drums, ideally I'd still want the hats and kick because if I'm going to learn drums, I want to be forced to use all my limbs and learn how to coordinate them.

A snare, kick, hat, and ride cymbal seems like about the most minimal you can get for that sort of thing. Or even ditch the ride and use OHH for a cymbal.

Greg

Well now you know what drums to sample.

Also, you're spot on about the snare/kick/hat/ride kit.

[Markleford]

Or even ditch the ride and use OHH for a cymbal.

My heavier bottom-hat makes for a very distinctive ride with almost all "bell sound"!

Again, I gotta mention splash cymbals: great for punctuation, easy to fit just about anywhere on a kit. Real crashes were always too, ummm, "crass" for my taste. But I don't do a big-rawk sound.

So far as my wish-list, I'm looking to add a double-kick pedal and some boo-bams/octobans. But that cocktail drum looks very cute too, omalley!

- m

[o'malley]

So far as my wish-list, I'm looking to add a double-kick pedal and some boo-bams/octobans. But that cocktail drum looks very cute too, omalley!

- m

Remo makes a hand drum version too:


coctail drums are also cool because you can mount all kinds of stuff to the sides of them.

[Lunch Money]

That looks like some cool shit, O'Malley!

[o'malley]

That looks like some cool shit, O'Malley!

Yeah, I think I might go to the flemarket this weekend and buy some cheap drums to start experementing with the idea. It's cool how you can have a kick and a tom all in one drum.

[o'malley]

I sometimes play with just a snare drum, bass drum and ride cymbal.
Your left foot feels a bit lonely but its a lovely setup.

Tie a shaker to your left leg, or a tambourine. It's fun!

Actually, if you get one of thoes rhythmtech moon shaped tambourines, you can put it under your foot and use it like a hi hat.

[duncanparsons]

Hey greg, I never saw this thread (I was on holiday when i first appeared).

I'm a drummer too, I have a rather nice Pearl kit I got last year (5 toms, with a very pleasant wood snare), which generally I play with a Hollywood Steel snare (Hollywood were a subsiduary of Ludwig). I've got a good collection of cymbals, ranging from cheap 'school' cymbal packs to aging Avedis Zildjian and a superb 5Star Zyn 16" CrashRide..

Anyway, when I've played small, I've generally gone for Bass, HiHat, Snare and my Zyn. One cymbal with a good range of sounds is what you want. If you were building a sample based kit that was going to be played, I would use a few samples going through the velocity layers..

Say 5 or 6 layers
Low Velocity - Low pitched Ride
Next Up - Med pitched Ride
Middle - Bell/Different Med Pitched Ride
Next - Low pitched Crash
Hi Velocity - Rich Crash

That would make performance better, and maybe put it into a choke group with another key which has no samples, so that you can do a reasonable choke as needed.

!

HTH
DSP